Letter to the Editor: Ideal of Equality

The Boy Scouts are among the many organizations that help make Alexandria such a fine place to live and grow. Civic, religious, and educational organizations sponsor troops across the city, some dating far back in the century since Scouting began. Alexandria troops old and new are active, growing, and instilling lessons in friendship, survival, love of nature, citizenship, and more.

On equality, however, Scouting is lagging behind other institutions, American business, and society as a whole. Next month the BSA national council will finally vote on a proposed policy stating that “no youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone.”

This would be a welcome and long overdue change, without which many more parents refuse to consider letting their boys join. As an Eagle Scout and a Scouting parent and volunteer, I very much hope that BSA will take this important step toward espousing the ideal of equality taught and cherished by Scouts and the Scouting movement as a whole.